Blackhawks extend Head Coach Joel Quenneville's contract

The Chicago Blackhawks announced today a three-year contract extension for Head Coach Joel Quenneville, which runs through the end of the 2016-17 National Hockey League season.

Quenneville is entering his sixth season with the Blackhawks after being named the 37th Head Coach in franchise history on Oct. 16, 2008. During his tenure, Quenneville has led the team to two Stanley Cup Championships becoming the only active head coach with multiple Cup wins. He coached the Blackhawks to their second President’s Trophy in 2012-13 when the team set a NHL record with 77 points in a 48-game schedule and finished with a .802 points percentage, fifth-best in league history; the Blackhawks also set a NHL record with a 24-game season-opening point streak. Quenneville was named a finalist for the 2013 Jack Adams Award, presented annually to the NHL coaches judged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.

With Quenneville at the helm, the Blackhawks have compiled a 222-106-44 record in 372 regular-season games. He holds a franchise-best .656 regular-season points percentage, while his .613 postseason winning percentage (46-29) is the highest for a Blackhawks coach since 1940. Quenneville is the only head coach in franchise history to win two Stanley Cup Championships.

Quenneville has posted a 660-389-162 (.612) record over parts of 16 years as an NHL head coach, including seven seasons with the St. Louis Blues (1996-2004) and three with the Colorado Avalanche (2005-08). He paces active head coaches and ranks sixth in NHL history with 660 wins, while his 1,211 games coached also leads active head coaches and ranks 10th all-time. The Windsor, Ontario, native became the 10th head coach in NHL history to reach the 600-win plateau on Dec. 18, 2011, reaching the milestone in the second-fewest number of games, trailing only Hall of Fame coach and current Blackhawks Senior Advisor Scotty Bowman. Quenneville has guided 14 of his 16 teams to the postseason, with nine clubs reaching at least the second round.

One of only two men in the history of the NHL to have played in 800 or more games and coached 1,000 or more games (Jacques Lemaire), Quenneville has notched at least 40 wins in 11 of his 12 full seasons as a Head Coach, which includes a career-best 52 victories with Chicago in 2009-10. During the 1999-2000 season he guided St. Louis to a career-best and franchise-record 114 points, as the team captured the Presidents’ Trophy for the league’s best record. He is the winningest coach in Blues history, having compiled a 307-191-95 record at that post. Quenneville was awarded the 2000 Jack Adams Trophy as the league’s top coach; he also served as Head Coach of Team Staal at the 2011 NHL All-Star Game and of the North American All-Stars at the 2001 NHL All-Star Game.

Quenneville was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round (21st overall) of the 1978 NHL Entry Draft. He spent 13 seasons as an NHL defenseman, netting 54 goals, 136 assists, 190 points and 705 penalty minutes in 803 career games with the Toronto Maple Leafs (1979-80), Colorado Rockies (1980-82), New Jersey Devils (1982-83), Hartford Whalers (1983-90) and Washington Capitals (1990-91).

He retired as an active player after the 1991-92 season, when he served as a player-coach for the American Hockey League’s St. John’s Maple Leafs. Quenneville broke into coaching with the AHL’s Springfield Indians before serving as an Assistant Coach for the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche organization for two and a half seasons. He helped Colorado capture the 1996 Stanley Cup in that position before accepting his first NHL head coaching job with St. Louis for the 1996-97 campaign.

Quenneville and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children: Dylan, Lily and Anna.